As the human species evolved from Paleolithic to modern times, our bodies have changed to fit the world around us. But with the human landscape moving quickly from the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions to the modern day of smartphones and junk food, are our bodies able to keep up?

Live animals are on display throughout the Museum's new exhibition The Power of Poison, helping elucidate the diversity and ubiquity of poisons in nature—and their myriad uses for humans, as medicine, weaponry, and inspiration.

Poisons like cyanide or belladonna may seem like the stuff of novels. But before Agatha Christie became the world’s best-selling mystery writer, such toxic compounds were, for a time, part of her everyday life—and literary inspiration.